Route reliability record
LGA→CLT
New York to Charlotte
- Flights
- 4,197
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 544 mi
- Carriers
- 4
This route carries a cancellation problem, not just a delay problem: 4.5% of scheduled flights never operate, against 1.9% nationally. Of the ones that do fly, close to three flights in four arrive on time, worth a B− overall. The punctuality figure counts only flights that actually departed, so it flatters an operation that cancels this often. That rests on 4,197 LGA to CLT flights, of which Republic Airways flew 924 at 77.7% on time.
Best time to fly LGA to CLT: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 90.6% of the time and Tuesday flights 80.8%, against 75.8% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.8%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 4,004 completed flights
Avg delay
91 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
4.50%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Republic
77.7% on time across 924 flights
These figures cover 4,197 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to CLT
The two carriers here are closely matched: half a point separate the best from the worst. At that spread, schedule and price are better tie-breakers than reliability. Sample sizes are shown so you can see which rows are worth weighing.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republic Airways | 924 | 77.7% | 68 min | 5.09% | B− |
| American Airlines | 2,769 | 77.4% | 104 min | 3.79% | B− |
| Spirit Airlinesthin sample | 262 | 68.7% | 68 min | 7.25% | C− |
| Frontier Airlinesthin sample | 242 | 58.5% | 71 min | 7.44% | D− |
Republic Airways cancels 5.1% of what it schedules here, the highest in the table. A cancelled flight never appears in an on-time rate, so read that column alongside the punctuality one rather than after it.
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Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly New York to Charlotte
Every airline on this route and on the routes between nearby airports, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time. 4 of the top 5 use a different airport at one end.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | Republic Airways | 84.1% | 87.5% | 3.94% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
| 2. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | American Airlines | 78.0% | 81.0% | 3.71% | 5am–8am, Wed | AA 1575 08:00 |
| 3. JFK → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 77.2% | 79.7% | 3.17% | 5am–8am, Tue | AA 1444 07:59 |
| 4. LGA → CLTNew York to Charlotte | American Airlines | 74.5% | 77.4% | 3.79% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
| 5. EWR → CLTNewark to Charlotte | United Airlines | 74.2% | 75.7% | 1.94% | 5am–8am, Tue | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 23 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am621 flights90.6%
- 8am–11am936 flights81.9%
- 11am–2pm597 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm629 flights70.1%
- 5pm–8pm1,145 flights67.4%
- 8pm–5am269 flights67.7%
Scale runs 60% to 95%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 90.6% of the time, against 67.4% for the evening window. That is 23 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 1,145 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter LGA to CLT by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On LGA to CLT, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 90.6% on time and the worst is 5pm–8pm at 67.4%, a wide gap of 23.2 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am90.6%
- 8–11am81.9%
- 11am–2pm76.3%
- 2–5pm70.1%
- 5–8pm67.4%
- 8pm–5am67.7%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 21 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 66.6% on time, against 88.0% in September. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. October was the busiest month here, with 436 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 80.8% on time and Sunday the weakest at 69.2%, a spread of 12 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 46% of the 88,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 46%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 22%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
46% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 88,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 12 to one. The split is drawn from 87,867 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.6% on time here.
Cancellations run at 4.50%, against 1.89% nationally. That is roughly one flight in twenty cancelled outright. A cancelled flight is invisible in every on-time figure on this page, so the punctuality numbers above describe only the flights that actually operated.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
10.5% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 544 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 71.5% on time across 4,193 flights, 4 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 4 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 4,197 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in CLT after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the delay figures matter less here than the 4.50% cancellation rate. A late arrival costs you an hour and a half; a cancelled flight costs you the day. Book the 5am–8am departure so there is still a schedule behind you if it goes wrong, and treat a same-day connection as optimistic. 4,004 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
LGA to CLT questions
How often is LGA to CLT delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.2% of the 4,197 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by an hour and a half on average.
Which airline is most reliable on LGA to CLT?
Republic Airways leads at 77.7% on time across 924 flights. American Airlines is at the other end on 77.4%, a gap of half a point. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on LGA to CLT?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 90.6% on time. The 5pm–8pm window is the weakest at 67.4%, 23 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on LGA to CLT?
December is the weakest month at 66.6% on time, compared with 88.0% in September. Across the year that is 21 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- CLT to LGA — the return legseparate record
- LaGuardia (LGA) delay statistics
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on LGA to CLT77.7%
- American Airlines on LGA to CLT77.4%
- Spirit Airlines on LGA to CLT68.7%
- Frontier Airlines on LGA to CLT58.5%
- LGA to ORD, a related route66.7%
- MCO to CLT, a related route78.6%
- LGA to ATL, a related route75.5%
- Republic Airways on-time record77.7%
- American Airlines on-time record77.4%
- Spirit Airlines on-time record68.7%
- The US routes with the most cancellations
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. LGA to CLT and CLT to LGA are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.